


The Light Behind Your Eyes

by random_fandom_memorandum



Series: Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back [2]
Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Asexual Kaladin, Book 04: Rhythm of War Spoilers, Couch Cuddles, Kissing, M/M, Post-Book 04: Rhythm of War, Sleepy Cuddles, bisexual adolin, kaladin gets to sleep, there are spoilers, urithiru is the cosmere version of the Stark Tower and I stand by that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28729119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_fandom_memorandum/pseuds/random_fandom_memorandum
Summary: Kaladin finally gets to sleep and Adolin wonders how he ended up with such a gem(heart).(takes place a few days after "Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?", but works on its own)
Relationships: Kaladin/Adolin Kholin, Shallan Davar/Adolin Kholin
Series: Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106063
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	The Light Behind Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Note that this contains RoW spoilers, which I mentioned in the tags and the series description, but am saying AGAIN. 
> 
> Yes, it's three am. Yes, I have school tomorrow. Yes, I have four other WIP fics. 
> 
> I'm not sure how I feel about it.

They were in the library on the fifth tier of Urithiru. Diamond broams in sconces lit the far corners of the room. Shelves built into the stone housed countless books and scrolls. A few months ago, the ardents had completed a catalogue of everything in the library. They estimated that there were at least ten thousand books in this one alone. Not to mention that there were nine others of similar (or greater) size. A massive glass window stretched from the floor to the ceiling on one side of the room, providing illumination. Outside, the sun was setting, bathing the clouds in pink light. The mountains surrounding the tower cast jagged shadows onto the rest of the landscape. 

Originally, the plan had been for Shallan to come to the library to study alone. But Adolin was bored and Kaladin had been forced off of guard duty after taking five straight ten-hour shifts before someone caught him. So they followed her like a pair of exceptionally well-armed baby chickens wherever she went. 

Adolin had dragged a couch away from one of the tables over to the window. Kaladin had followed him. They'd sat together for several hours chatting and watching the clouds pass by. It was nice, to see him animated and happy and alive. He'd wondered for a while if Kaladin would make it after the siege on Urithiru ended. Teft's death had hit him hard, and the fact that it was at the hands of a former friend only made it worse. 

Sometimes, late at night, he could feel Kaladin'sbreath choking up in his chest as he tried not to cry and wake Adolin up. He wished there was something he could do to take the pain away from him. Kaladin was grumpy by default, but seeing him sad was different. After the incident a few days ago, Syl told him that Kal had been hiding his panic attacks from Adolin to keep him from getting worried. He'd sighed. _Typical Kaladin._ _Taking care of everyone but himself._

Adolin felt a weight fall onto his shoulder. He looked over to see Kaladin passed out cold. _Oh heralds. He's finally sleeping_. How long had it been now? Five days?

Syl popped up into his field of vision out of nowhere. If not for the fact that there was an easily awakened Radiant snoring against his side, he'd have started in surprise. "Hey," she said. "It's just me. I'm glad he's finally sleeping. He's been awake for four days straight now."

"Wait. I thought he took naps between shifts sometimes."

"Does sleeping on the job sound like Kaladin to you?"

"No," he admitted.

She nodded. "He's been using stormlight to keep himself awake. It's not sustainable for very long, but it works, I guess. He feels guilty for oversleeping the other day."

"I had someone cover his shift!"

"Do you think he'd let someone else do his job for him? If it's any condolence to you, he's been thinking about you a lot."

A smile crossed his face as he ran his fingers through Kaladin's hair. The ribbon he'd put there earlier had fallen out, but it was tied around his wrist now. "What's he been saying?"

She squinted. "I'm not sure if it's my place to say."

"Fair enough. Do you think I can move him to a more comfortable position without waking him up?"

"Yes. What did you have in mind?"

"I wanted to lay back against the side armrest."

She flitted down and landed on Kaladin's hand. Resting one palm on his forehead, she looked back up at him. "He's out cold. I guess he drained his stormlight supply a little bit ago. He uses it to stay awake far longer than he should be able to. Don't let him have any more."

"I gave all of my spheres to Shallan so she could use them for whatever she's doing."

"Which is what?"

"I'm not sure, actually. I wish I could say I understood it, but I don't. You could always go ask her, I guess. But that's not important. We have a sleeping Kaladin to move." He pulled off his boots and set them on the floor, then flung his legs up onto the couch, being careful not to hit Kaladin in the process. The other man inhaled sharply. A surge of panic filled Adolin. Had he woken him up? _And just when he'd fallen asleep too. Oh no._

Instead, he shifted to lay beside Adolin, resting his head on Adolin's chest. _He's still asleep. Thank Honor._ He wrapped an arm around Kaladin and turned his head to look out the glass window. Urithiru's shadow stretched off into infinity, seeming to go past the horizon as the sun set. The sky above the clouds was deepening from ruby red to amethyst violet. 

Even though the tower's fabrials had been mostly figured out by Navani (with the help of the Sibling!), the occupation had resulted in many of them being damaged or destroyed completely. The stormlight collection system still hadn't been fixed. As a result, the limited power they had was being directed to areas deemed necessary: the water systems, the pressure regulator (he still didn't understand that one – how could air have weight?), residential heating, and soulcasting waste disposal teams. Heating a library on the fifth tier wasn't very high up on the list of priorities. Most scholars favored the first tier, because that was where the spanreeds were. So it was kind of cold. But he wasn't about to move and risk waking Kaladin up. 

He was glad to have Kaladin's preternaturally warm body heat right on top of him. It was like a heating fabrial, almost. Kaladin usually fell asleep last, so holding him while he was asleep, instead of the other way around, was a new experience. He liked it. It was calming. 

He thought back to when Shallan had first caught him watching Kaladin. Kal had been leading a group of recruits through a spear kata. The way he'd moved (and those muscles!) had done something to Adolin. A lot of things. She'd poked him as soon as she'd noticed and he'd turned away, embarrassed. 

On some subconscious level, he'd always known he was attracted to both men and women, but Kaladin was the first man who'd stood out and was beyond question. Sometimes he just wasn't sure if he wanted friendship or something more. 

Shallan had told him that if he was interested, it would be okay for him to go pursue a relationship with someone besides her. At first, he'd thought that meant breaking off their engagement, and told her that he didn't want to lose her. Then she clarified. _"Some relationships have three people instead of two. Sometimes more. I'd be open to something like that if you are."_

It'd taken him several days to think over. He'd worried about what the ardents thought, if he'd be excommunicated. Then he remembered that their entire religion was built on a dead god, their queen was an atheist, and his own father was writing. Openly. After marrying his brother's widow. The church was in a time of transition. Relationships between two people of the same gender were gradually becoming more accepted too. He figured he could hop on that boat as well. 

Nobody had ever told him that you could be attracted to two genders. Sure, there were women who only liked other women, and men who only liked other men, and traditional couples. But he'd never heard of anyone like himself. Someone interested in both. He thought it meant he was broken. Once he brought it up to a girl he was courting. He thought she would understand. Instead, she'd left him over it, claiming she thought he would cheat on her and only had half of a heart. After that, he didn't say anything until Shallan saw him staring at Kaladin, who was shirtless at the time, and called him out on it. 

Surprisingly, she'd been okay with it. She said she was similar. That was reassuring, to know that he wasn't alone. Nothing was wrong with him after all. It was a massive rock lifted off of his chest. 

So of course, when Shallan told she was open to adding Kaladin into their relationship, he was excited. Until he remembered that Kaladin wasn't very open about his feelings. Ever. And he had no idea if Kaladin liked him back. Or even liked men. Who would he ask? One of the bridgemen? They'd just report it back to him, and it'd become a story told around the nightly stew fire. Worse, Renarin frequented those. And that was the last thing he wanted his brother hearing. _"Your brother has the hots for your commanding officer, just so you know."_

She suggested that he ask Kaladin himself. But he imagined that situation before, and it hadn't really ended well. Unless the imagining was late at night, when Shallan wasn't there, in which case it ended very well.

He still thought it was a bad idea. 

Shallan took matters into her own hands, ostensibly to save him from crippling embarrassment. Or at least, that was what he'd thought at the time. She'd dragged him away from the rest of the Windrunners with the excuse that she needed a surgebinder for her squires to study so they could learn to mimic the other eight surges with illusions. Of course, when he was brought up to Adolin's and Shallan's quarters, he was confused. _"Did you make a wrong turn somewhere?"_ She'd explained everything to him while Adolin cowered in the background.

Sure, he could face men with swords that would sever your soul, demons from hell, and moderately insane half-gods. But talk to his crush? Have his wife talk to his crush for him? No. Never. His face was redder than her hair by the time she finished her monologue. _"Maybe we should take a walk,"_ Kaladin had suggested. _"Clear the air."_

The next hour consisted of walking around Urithiru silently, neither of them wanting to break the tension. They took a lift to the top floor of the tenth tier – the observation deck.

* * *

_"So," he asked Kaladin. "Thoughts?"_

_"I... I don't know how to say this."_

_"You just listened to my wife tell you I was interested in you after she dragged you to our room under the guise of training. How could this get any more awkward?"_

_Kaladin exhaled sharply. "I'm not really attracted to women. Like, at all."_

_"Oh. So no to Shallan. But what about Lyn? I thought you dated her for a while."_

_"She asked me, and I thought it would be rude to say no."_

_"Kal, you don't have to court everyone who asks you."_

_"I guess... Is my not being interested in Shallan a dealbreaker, or?"_

_Adolin's heartbeat increased tenfold. He could probably summon Maya before he thought to do it, at this rate._ Heralds. He didn't say not me. But that also doesn't mean anything. But he did also ask if it was a dealbreaker, implying he still wanted the rest of the deal. But what if he doesn't? " _No. She isn't into you either. Well, Veil is. Was? Is she still around? I haven't seen her in a long time." Why did these things have to be so complicated?_

_"I see."_

Was this good or bad? _Adolin's thoughts twisted in a hundred directions._ What was going to happen? 

_Kaladin looked at his feet, not meeting his eyes. He'd never seen that before. It was strange, coming from him. Kaladin was the type who always met your gaze. Even if you outranked him by a mile._

_After a minute of silence, he put one hand on Adolin's shoulder. His face heated at the contact as Kaladin looked back into his eyes. "I would."_

Huh?

_"Like to be in a relationship with you, I mean."_

Oh storms. 

_"I've been watching you since I first saw you in the warcamps. You helped that woman in the streets. I never forgot that. It gave me hope, I think. To see that the world wasn't all bad. That there was some Honor left."_

What should I say?

_"I've liked you for a long time. The duel was probably what cemented it. You didn't hesitate, just followed me into jail and refused to leave." He smiled._

He smiled. At me. Damnation.

_"I love you, Adolin Kholin."_

* * *

Adolin smiled as he thought back to that time, before Urithiru was invaded and he got stuck in shadesmar again. They'd stayed up there for a long time that night, watching as the sky burned gold, then fiery red before fading into violet darkness. He'd leaned on Kaladin's shoulder as they looked out over the valley, partly covered by clouds.

Kaladin muttered something into his shoulder, startling him. 

He looked over at Syl, resting on Kaladin's back, who shrugged. "I think he's just talking in his sleep. He does that sometimes."

She didn't add that usually he was having nightmares back to his time during the siege, when Moash had come and torn apart the people he loved. The time after had been hard. He wanted to grieve, but also wanted – needed – to rebuild the Windrunners. Teft had been his second in command before he died. Now he was gone, and Kaladin was barred from leading missions. So instead, he took over far more guard shifts and training regimens than should have been possible. He worked himself to the bone and then some, relying on stormlight to stay awake and alive. 

It hurt him to see Kaladin in so much pain while being unable to do anything about it. Everyone In his family was Radiant now. Except him. His father and Navani were Bondsmiths. His brother was a Truthwatcher. His wife led the Lightweavers. His aunt was an Elsecaller and the queen of Alethkar. He felt powerless. Why did his swordsmanship matter when they could just destroy batallions with a wave of their hands? There was nothing he could do that they couldn't do better. 

Maybe he deserved it, after taking the spotlight from Renarin for so long. His brother hadn't deserved all the jibes, snarky remarks, and stares he got at every dinner, every party, every social event. Now he was one of the top artifabrians, along with Jasnah and Navani. And a Radiant on top of that. He had a living blade that could change forms. Jasnah could summon her own shardplate. Even Shallan had a blade. Two of them. 

He had Maya and some regular swords. Nothing, compared to them.

Not very exciting compared to the rest of his family, who could open portals between realms, melt stone, soulcast, see the future, create illusions, manage an ancient tower the size of a city, heal grave wounds in an instant, teleport, create stormlight from thin air, grow plants, and summon maps with incredible precision.

They were basically gods. 

He was... whatever he was. 

It was hard, being the one normal person in a family full of incredible people. Everyone expected him to become a Radiant soon, even if they never said it aloud. The implication was still there. The meetings where everyone else was a Radiant. The training sessions where everyone else did cool things with magic while he swung swords at stuff. The way people would run up to him in his Kholin uniform, expecting a Windrunner, only to be disappointed.

The unspoken comments stung.

Sometimes he wondered if it was all in his head. He did wonder sometimes, what it would be like to become a Radiant. What order would he be? A graceful Edgedancer? A silent Elsecaller? The third Bondsmith? A Truthwatcher like his brother? An honorable Windrunner?

Unlike them, he couldn't recklessly charge into battle without a second thought. The Radiants lost limbs all the time and grew them back like it was nothing. If he sprained an ankle, he'd be out of commission for several days while it healed. Storms, Shallan had been stabbed through the chest before and been perfectly fine in a few hours. 

Now that so many people had Blade and Plate, what did that make him? _And surges too,_ he thought. 

Someone tapped him on his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. "Huh?" he asked.

Then he saw Shallan, a stack of books tucked under her left arm, holding a folded blanket in the other. "I was wondering where you went," she said. "I figured you were off somewhere being swordish chaps or whatever men do in their free time."

"Free time doesn't really exist for Kaladin. There's 'guard time' and 'training time.' Syl says this is the first time in three-"

"Four," Syl corrected.

"Four days since he's fallen asleep."

"Ash's eyes," she swore. "That's probably not good for him."

"It definitely isn't. He's mad about oversleeping the other day."

"That was his day off, though I guess he doesn't really do days off." She shrugged. "I'm heading off to do my nightly bar crawl and see what information I can dredge up. Anyway, I brought you a blanket. It's cold up here, even with stormlight. Though I guess you don't have it, and Kaladin's fresh out. "

"Thank you," he said, ignoring the implication. _If you were a Radiant, you wouldn't be having these problems._

She nodded, then draped the blanket over them. "I'll see you later. I did some finagling and closed the library to anyone else until tomorrow morning, so it'll be quiet. Don't ask how, I doubt you'll like the answer."

He smiled. "I won't," he said, even though he very much wanted to know how. 

"Goodnight." 

She walked off towards the entrance, her footsteps impossibly loud in the nighttime silence. Outside the window, the first stars were appearing. It reminded him of seeing the starspren in shadesmar. How had that only been a few months ago? It felt like a dozen years had passed. He wished Kaladin had been there to see it with him. But Kal was here now, and that was enough for him, he thought as his eyes closed. He was so tired.

Some time later, somebody poked him. He blinked blearily. "Huh?"

"Adolin?" Kal asked.

"Mhm."

"What are we doing here?"

"You fell asleep while we were sitting here, so I let you sleep."

"Oh."

"Don't ask about your shift tomorrow. You don't have one."

"But-"

Adolin pressed a finger to his lips. "No. You've been working for three-"

"Four," Syl corrected.

"Four days straight. You need to take a break. You swore the fourth oath. Sometimes you have to accept that there's nothing more you can do."

"That doesn't mean I should stop trying," he protested.

"How do I put this in terms you won't weasel out of? You can't protect anyone if you're dying from sleep deprivation."

"I really hate that your point makes sense."

"Do you want to stay here, or go back to our room?"

"What time is it?"

He still didn't have one of those crazy arm fabrials that Dalinar, Jasnah, and Navani wore. Too clunky. So he looked out the window to see two of the three moons outside – Salas and Nomon, the first two of the three sisters – casting blue and violet light into the night. "Probably close to midnight."

"Stay here. I'm too tired to go anywhere."

"Your lack of sleep finally caught up with you, I see."

"No, I just ran out of stormlight."

"Sure. You shouldn't really be relying on that stuff to stay awake anyway."

"I guess."

"Shallan managed to close the library down until tomorrow so nobody would bother us."

He felt Kaladin's brow furrow. "Huh? Why? What did she think we were doing?"

"No, nothing like that." Even though he wanted to take their relationship further, Kaladin wasn't interested. So he respected Kaladin's boundaries. He was okay with where their relationship was now, anyway. "Just so that it would stay quiet. We didn't want you to wake up." 

"Oh."

"Yeah. You haven't been sleeping much – at all, really – and we're worried about you."

"I did sleep the other day!" Kaladin protested.

"Kal, that was four days ago."

"And?"

"You're supposed to sleep every night."

He sighed heavily. "I know. But after everything... it's just easier to stay awake than deal with the nightmares. It's bad for me, but better than the alternative."

Adolin hugged Kaladin again, wishing there was something he could do to make this better. "I'd say I'm sorry, but you've told me to stop. I really don't like not being able to do anything to help."

"You being here is helping."

_Oh._

"Whenever you hold me at night, it's a grounding reminder that I'm not alone. That you're there for me when I need you to be."

_I don't know how to follow that._

Kaladin followed it for him, leaning to kiss him on the forehead. In the faint moonslight, he could see Kaladin smiling at him as he pulled himself back up into a sitting position, taking Adolin with him. 

He wrapped his arms around Kaladin's waist as the other man kissed him again, this time on the lips. Kaladin usually wasn't one to initiate contact. But he wasn't going to complain. They were of a similar height when standing, but by straddling Adolin's waist, Kaladin had gained a slight height advantage, so he tilted Adolin's chin up with one hand. Adolin's stomach fluttered. _Ash's eyes. This is wonderful,_ he thought as he ran a hand through Kaladin's hair. It was unexpectedly soft. _Someone's finally taken my advice,_ he noted, before Kaladin's presence destroyed any semblance of coherent thought.

He'd stay here forever, if given the option. In Kaladin's (very toned) arms, running his fingers through his hair, kissing him. The Tranquiline halls themselves couldn't be this good. When they broke apart to catch their breath, he told Kaladin so. He blushed at the complement. Adolin didn't think he'd ever get tired of seeing Kaladin like this – slightly disheveled, eyes bright, blushing furiously – something he'd previously only seen in dreams. 

Was it – was this a dream?

He decided he didn't really care if it was as Kaladin wrapped his legs around Adolin's back. Humming, he brushed some of Kaladin's hair back out of his face. His eyes were a pale blue almost all the time now. They seemed to glow in the darkness. The fact that it was cold didn't matter much anymore, his body heating up as Kaladin's hands ran up his back, tracing his muscles.

 _Storms, this was wonderful_. Urithiru could be being invaded right now, and he wouldn't care one bit. His world narrowed until all that was left was Kaladin. Nothing else mattered. 

After a too-short eternity, Kaladin pulled back, gasping. "I- storms. Wow. You're something else, princeling."

"Shut up and kiss me, bridgeboy."


End file.
